Financial Goal #1 Accomplished

It's been a month now I think since we accomplished the first financial goal we set, we sold the 2013 Dodge Durango and bought a "previously owned" minivan.  We are now the proud owners of two paid-off cars. Yay for no car payments! Our savings took a hit to pay for the minivan but we should make that money back by the end of the year.
The kids absolutely love the minivan.  Liam loves to play with the buttons for the automatic doors.  We love the extra cargo space and overall feel of it.  I definitely love the sliding doors although I'm not sure I love the automatic doors all the time.  The automatic doors are definitely a plus for the car line when I pick up Gavin at school, otherwise I could live without them.
Anyhow- I'll have to post a picture later when I take one.  I still haven't taken a picture of the van. :(
But we are very happy with our minivan!  Never thought I'd be saying that but it's true.

Easter Brunch Menu

I was so excited for Easter morning.  It feels a little bit like Christmas to me again. Perhaps that's why I've been feeling a little homesick.  I was really looking forward to making this Easter brunch for us.  I had an ambitious plan given that I did no prep work ahead of time but everything worked out...except for the vegan french toast.  After making the pancakes, it just seemed kind of pointless to make the french toast so I'll leave those for later this week.
For breakfast: 

• Carrot Cake Pancakes with vegan cream cheese filling  (because the Easter bunny likes carrots ya know).  The recipe was for carrot cake waffles but after seeing how thick the batter turned out, I was afraid of putting it in my waffle maker (which has been a hit or miss lately).  Instead I made pancakes to be safe.  The recipe itself needed a bit of "cleaning up" to make it more real-food approved.  So I made the following substitutions:
• oat flour instead of all purpose flour, 
• coconut sugar instead of white sugar (coconut sugar is considered un-refined)
• coconut milk yogurt instead of reg. yogurt or buttermilk
• flax eggs instead of regular eggs
• vegan butter instead of regular butter
• Added almond milk at the end to thin out the batter 
• They turned out AMAZING!  The kids did not want to spread the cream cheese filling on them so I was the only one that used the "frosting" as Liam called it, and I can tell you that it tasted JUST like carrot cake.  A little too sweet for my breakfast taste but I did eat one later in the day as "dessert".  

• Egg Frittata with mushrooms, spinach, onions/peppers, and tomatoes
• Bacon. For the kids...for those who think I don't fee the kids meat.  They LOVE their bacon.  In fact, it might be Ellie's 6th word, she was so desperate for more today she came close to saying it today.  
• Homemade Hashbrowns- I was so happy I learned how to make these from scratch.  It was not hard at all and now I know there's no need to buy the frozen ones.  

While in cooking mode, I also prepared food for the next couple of days.  I made these:

• Veggie Pasta Stew- Ate this for dinner and it was a big hit with everyone.  Really hearty and delicious.
• Vegan Mac n' Cheese Casserole
• Broccoli Cheese Rice Casserole- I made up this recipe.  Cooked brown rice in rice cooker.  Steamed broccoli.  Placed rice in a casserole dish and mixed in cream cheese, salt/pepper. Added broccoli, mixed it all up and topped with some shredded cheddar cheese.

Week of April 12-19

I know I've slacked off.  The past couple of weeks have been out of the ordinary for our work/travel schedules so we had to feed on the fly and there were some non-real food, or a lot of non-real-food options consumed.  For me, once I cheat I go downhill fast because I then just keep cheating until I hit my low-point where I can FEEL my body is not balanced and then I feel like I want to go on a raw vegan diet to get myself back on track (which I don't do...but I do think in extremes).

So this week, I did not prepare much ahead but I have (had) a plan.  It's spring break for Gavin so I'm thinking that since I don't have to drop him off and pick him up that opens up the daily timeline which will give me time to prepare meals from scratch on the day of.  here's the plan:

Sunday-- Make your own pita pizza day.
These were ALL real-food approved.  I found 100% whole-wheat pitas with no preservatives at all (I think there are only 4 ingredients total) at Earthfare and they were only $2.99 for a pack of 5 pitas which I thought was pretty great so I stocked up on these and put them in the freezer for another time.
I had homemade BBQ sauce in the freezer from when I made BBQ lentils a few weeks ago, so I defrosted that so the boys could make their BBQ pizzas.  I achieved the goal of getting rid of the Trader Joe's BBQ sauce on the pizza!  I also set out an organic pineapple salsa for the option of Mexican pizza....which the boys ended up choosing this time.
Then I chopped up mushrooms, green/red peppers, onions, spinach, tomatoes, cilantro and I also gave them black beans, cut up ham and corn too.  I set all the toppings in the middle of the table, gave each boy a pita and had them create their own pita pizza.  The boys love putting together their own and they ate them all because like Gavin mentioned, "this is my favorite pizza because it has all of my favorite toppings, and it's healthy because you picked out the toppings and you always pick what's healthy for us".  WIN-WIN!

Monday-- White bean/spinach/red quinoa soup or left-over pita pizzas
This is actually left over from Sunday's lunch but turned out really good.  I used garlic, italian seasoning and salt/pepper to season it, used a low sodium vegetable broth as a base.  Tossed in every vegetable I had in the fridge, frozen spinach, broccoli, carrots/celery, mushrooms and I added cannellini beans and red quinoa. Hearty tasty soup.

Tuesday--The plan was for Kung Pao Noodles but instead ended up having "Taco Tuesday" at Qdoba.  This is the result of not cooking ahead of times like I'm supposed to do on Sundays.  I was out doing fun Tuesday stuff with the kids and it got too late for me to come home and cook so we ate out at a semi-decent place, at least they got their serving of vegetables and whole grains for dinner.

Wednesday-- Nick's night- Veggie burger and french fries (at least both are organic)

Thursday-- Stuffed peppers
Quinoa mixed with black beans, tomatoes, corn, salsa, cilantro placed inside the peppers and topped with cheese.

Friday-- Got stuck out late so we ate at Pei Wei.  This was rather disappointing too, it didn't hit the spot for us but the kids ate it up.  Gavin and Liam both eat so well here.  We order them kids' meals with brown rice, teriyaki chicken and a side of stir fry vegetables and they eat them up.

So, this week turned out to be another "bad" week in the realm of real food.  On the one hand I get really upset with myself because I feel uber guilty when I don't cook for my family and myself.  I feel junky myself and so I know that I am not doing the best for the kids.  On the other hand, I can say that eating out this week allowed me to be "with" the kids more and I really enjoyed the memories we made.  I think Gavin in particular really needed the "us" time this week.  Next week is another week....

Menu for Week of March 24-March 29

This week was an out of the ordinary week.  I left town on Thursday to Orlando with Ellie for a friend's bridal shower.  Nick was home with the boys from Thursday-Sunday so I planned to make food for them before I left, not all of it happened but I tried.

Sunday-- BBQ Lentil "sloppy joe" sandwiches
Seriously, 2 years ago I would've gagged at the thought of having a "bean" sandwich but lentils have quickly become meat replacements in our house.  This recipe is SOOOO good.  I LOVE the homemade BBQ sauce.  I didn't use molasses, I used maple syrup instead and I did not use liquid smoke....because that doesn't sound like it's good for you.  I made no other substitutions but I made it all on the stovetop, without using the food processor first.  Instead I used the immersion blender after all had been cooked.
Nick and Gavin loved these.  Liam and Ellie were a little pickier and opted for an alternative dinner.

Monday-- Spaguetti with Meatballs
Yes, "real" meatballs...for the boys.  This is Nick's night with the kids and I prepped Tuesday's meal but nothing for Monday so it's pasta night. :)

Tuesday-- Taco Tuesday
Ever since Gavin watched the Lego Movie he has been wanting to do a Tuesday Taco Night and since I keep mixing up the days on tacos, he keeps requesting tacos on a tuesday night.  Hence, why Nick couldn't use the prepped meal in the fridge for Monday's dinner....because then it would've been Taco Monday and in the words of Liam, "that's not good".

Wednesday-- Vegetable Pot Pies topped with homemade vegan biscuits  (Yeah...the individual pot pies did NOT happen but I did make the biscuits and they were GOOD! We just ended up using them with the curried soup below)

Thursday-- Curried Vegetables and Chickpea Stew  (this was delish)

Friday-- Leftovers

Saturday-- Ate out....Boys went to the zoo.